“We have about four to five data points per day, and this is something that you almost never get in geological history,” Neils de Winter, lead author of the new study, said in a statement. “We can basically look at a day 70 million years ago. It’s pretty amazing.”
It’s an interesting window into Earth’s past, and it could offer scientists additional insights into a different area of research: the relationship between the Moon and Earth. Earth’s year has remained relatively constant for billions of years, but the length of the day has changed over time. This is attributed to the Moon’s gravitational pull on our planet’s ocean waters, gradually slowing the Earth’s rotation over hundreds of millions of years.
At the same time, the Moon is slowly separating itself from Earth each year. The change is small, less than two inches per year, but it’s measurable. Making that present-day data mesh with historical observations has been a challenge, but the more points of reference scientists have, the better. Going forward, the team plans on using the same technique to date other fossils and learn even more about how long days were at different points throughout Earth’s history.
